Stargate Atlantis: Even in the Distance
By Reyclou

Chapter Eight: Twisting the Knife

Rodney startled at Elizabeth's name so suddenly that the thin pad in his hand nearly slipped from his grasp. He clumsily caught and, hugging it to himself, turned to face the woman. Wide blue eyes studied her in disbelief for an awkward second before he sputtered, "Elizabeth, what… what are you doing down here?"

Overwhelmed, Elizabeth looked straight past Rodney to the pilot at his side. "My god, John!" she blurted as she stared into the eyes of the colonel who, only a day or so before, had lain lifeless in the cold chamber of the Lantean morgue—but this was no corpse that stood before her. From spiky head to booted toe, John looked as vibrant and healthy as he had been the day he left for 895. In fact, John did not simply look all right—unscathed was, perhaps, the better term. He didn't bear so much as scratch where once there had been scorched scars. She tried to step toward him, but the colonel matched her with a cautious step backward, placing Rodney between them. Hazel eyes seemed nervous—fearful, even—and he held out a hand as if to will her to come no further.

Elizabeth drew back a moment, surprised. Is John… afraid of me?

"Nice job watching the perimeter sensors, Rodney!" John hissed angrily, sliding a sharp glare in the scientist's direction.

Spurned by John's sharp shot, Rodney grunted, returning the colonel's cold look with a searing glare of his own. "You're the one who sealed off the bulkheads and transports, Colonel. I have been just a little too busy trying to keep a blockheaded flyboy from blowing up the whole city!"

Listlessly, Elizabeth stepped forward again. This was unreal—for three days she had mourned John's passing, yet here he was, fresh as day. She felt elated, and yet a part of her refused to believe. It was just too wonderful to comprehend. "What is this?" she managed, dividing her attention between the scientist and the reborn airman, but neither spoke. "What's going on?" she urged, regaining the strength in her voice. John would not meet her gaze, but again retreated with her every advance. He studied the floor, the ceiling, anything but her. His cheeks reddened in embarrassment—or was it anger? "John!" Elizabeth insisted when he would not respond. "JOHN!"

The colonel opened his mouth to speak, but he could say nothing. She saw then that it was indeed anger boiling within him, silenced only by a look of sincere anguish. He closed his eyes and turned his face away from her. She knew he was not one to voice his emotions, especially not in the presence of other men, but he always had a snappy comeback or profound observation to add—if only to throw her off the scent—but John, for once in his life, had nothing to say.

Rodney, too, made to reply, but upon glancing between the two, he fell into a sober, non-committal silence and idly stared at the floor.

"Dr. Weir," greeted a woman's voice. Startled, Elizabeth spun around, but found no one save the stout scientist. A pale pulse of light filled the small room and suddenly a young woman with crystal blue eyes and blonde hair stepped up to Elizabeth's side. She reminded Elizabeth of cloudless skies and white beaches, glimmering gold and giggling green eyes. "I see you arrived unharmed," she continued.

John lurched forward, glaring at the young woman with all the fury of a hurricane unleashed. "You!" John growled behind clenched teeth, pointing an accusing finger at the blonde. "You did this, didn't you? I said don't tell anyone! ANYONE!"

"I told her nothing, Colonel Sheppard," the woman replied in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. The kind a nanny used to scold a child on a technicality. "She came to this place on her own."

"Bull!" John snapped, looking as if he wanted to throw something. He stalked toward the smaller woman, tension in his veins. "You pulled her down here. You led her down here! There's no way anyone could get in here without my knowing, I sealed the transports myself!"

"Did you?" the woman asked in a tone that hinted the truth of that statement was clearly up for debate. Biting his lip to quell his anger, John again backed away. Heat and frustration clearly raged under his tight reigns.

Elizabeth felt a headache forming as she tried to piece the scene together. Two people who could not possibly exist stood bickering before her, like a dream come alive. "Anne?" she tested softly.

Rodney's brow scrunched in confusion as he looked to Elizabeth. "Anne? What are you talking about, Elizabeth? Her name isn't…" his eyes widened sharply. "Wait a minute, you know her?" Elizabeth nodded absently, eyes still glued on John. Again, a sense of unreality passed over her. He stood closer now, yet felt farther, like she was looking at him through a telescope. She could see him, and yet she could not feel his warm presence standing within her arms reach. Shock, she told herself. She had to be in shock. She had just buried a man only to find him again, alive and well, hidden in the depths of her city. Color drained from Rodney's face and the laptop slipped a little further out of his grasp before he recovered.

Anne smiled faintly, kindly, as she set her gaze on Elizabeth. "My name is not Anne, Dr. Weir. That was merely the identity your subconscious assigned to me as I attempted to interface with your mind."

Elizabeth blinked absently. "Subconscious…? What is she talking about?" she asked, looking to Rodney.

"As you well know," he replied. "Lantean technology has a mental component that allows the human mind to integrate itself with various systems. Up until this point, we've only discovered technology that works one way—that being mental or thought commands on the part of the user to the device. This program works both ways, receiving and sending information back to the user through that same mental component."

"Then this is, what—a hologram?" Elizabeth asked, motioning to the woman. When Rodney nodded, her eyes turned back on Anne with renewed wonder. "And what exactly is this program—she—supposed to do?"

Rodney glanced to the white clad woman like was a difficult jigsaw puzzle or a game to be solved. "That's where it gets a little complicated. You see, she's actually integrated into the entire system," he explained quickly. "Thereby granting her access to the whole of the city, yet she still requires basic input from the user side in order to initiate and or maintain her influence over…"

"Rodney!" Elizabeth shot in a clipped, warning tone. Accomplished as she was, she had a hard time keeping up with the man when he went into full techno-babble overload.

Still shaken by Elizabeth's sudden appearance, the scientist cleared his throat, trying to will color back into his features. "Dr. Weir," he began shakily, unsurely. He cleared his throat, trying to sound official. "Meet Atlantis—the city's very own Artificial Intellect."

It was Elizabeth's turn to balk in confusion. "Artificial Intellect?" she blurted, stepping forward to examine the other woman more closely. "So she's sentient?"

"About as sentient as a PDA," huffed John. His dark mood had not lifted in light of the conversation.

"Colonel," Rodney responded, borrowing Elizabeth's warning tone. John held up both hands, palms spread and mouth shut, in a show of compliance. Again, he backed off. Whatever unspoken conflict passed between the two, the colonel didn't seem to feel it was worth fighting over outright.

Anne took the opportunity to add in her thoughts. "I am what you might consider an embodiment of the Database of the Lanteans—an avatar, a guide of sorts, to the city. I have access to the full gamut of the database and computer systems of Atlantis, and I can assist you in searching out anything you would wish to know."

Rodney smiled triumphantly. "Google in a sundress."

"As wonderful as this all is," Elizabeth politely added, turning back to the physicist. "What does this have to do with John?" The name suddenly felt odd in her throat. She had worked so hard to remind herself to refer to him in the past tense that, to suddenly switch back to the present, felt pleasant, but odd.

Rodney shot the colonel a worried look, as if asking his permission to share a state secret. John closed his eyes and dropped his head into a hand, but said nothing. Something was going on that they weren't telling her. "Like I said," Rodney rushed to make up for lost time. "It's all very complicated, I think it'd be best if I-"

"Three days ago, my death initiated a resurrection protocol dormant within the city's system which awoke the Atlantis program," John groaned, interrupting the scientist's flustered babbling.

"-Was just getting to that," the smaller man finished in a defeated tone.

"What?" blurted Elizabeth. She stared unbelieving at the renewed Colonel.

"It is true, Dr. Weir," Anne nodded. She looked just as fresh and radiant as Elizabeth recalled from her dream that, apparently, was not a dream. "Colonel Sheppard was the first being of your expedition with suitable genetic characteristics with which to trigger my programming. I can sense another, but Colonel Sheppard was the first."

"Resurrection?" Elizabeth whispered, awestruck. "The Ancients had such technology?"

John shrugged. "Apparently, they built more than just really cool explosives."

Rolling his eyes in annoyance, Rodney shifted his grip on the tablet in his hands. "Short answer, yes, but between the original siege of Atlantis, the super storm, and our last lovely encounter with the Wraith, this sector took a lot of damage. Originally, we wrote it off thinking there was nothing of worth in this section—at least nothing we could readily grasp at the time—but I'm beginning to think the Wraith know more about our fair city than we've been lead to believe."

That piqued Elizabeth's curiosity. She frowned in tempted interest. "How so?"

"You're standing in what was once the central medical sector of Atlantis. The Wraith must have known that and targeted this sector on that assumption," Rodney stood back, spreading arms to present the city. "Carson would have a field day if he knew what half the stuff around here could do!"

Still concerned, Elizabeth folded her arms. She just couldn't shake the sense of unreality. "Why didn't I hear about this sooner?"

"In a way, I think you did. See, this program can communicate in one of two ways. The first being through traditional audiovisual techniques such as the holochamber we found in the central spire. While effective, such holographic technology requires a great deal of power, as we have experienced first hand. That's why the Ancients developed a mental component that links the user directly with the avatar like a… a…"

"PDA?" John offered.

Rodney's shoulders slumped and his jaw tightened with frustration. "I was going to say radio but if you're so obsessed with that analogy then, yes, a PDA. Getting back to the issue at hand, the program wasn't triggered until just a few days ago. At that point the city attempted to use this mental technology to communicate with us."

Elizabeth frowned again. "Us?"

"She talked to me too, but that's beside the point. The technology didn't sync with our minds like it was supposed to."

Again, Anne nodded. "It is difficult for me to commune with those who are incompatible with my programming."

"You mean the Gene?" Elizabeth tilted her head in understanding.

"But that doesn't make sense," Rodney stepped forward. "I have the Gene."

"Artificially," the colonel pressed. Rodney frowned.

Anne, or rather, Atlantis, smiled a comforting smile for the scientist. "You are much like the Lanteans who came before, Dr. McKay, but you are not them," Rodney made a move to protest, but the woman cut him short before he could speak a word. "There is no shame in being what you are," she added in a pointed tone, and Rodney backed down.

"I'm not sure I understand," Elizabeth stated after Atlantis made her point.

"You have audio devices, these radios, you communicate with, yes?" the avatar asked. Elizabeth nodded. "And you all hear the same thing when one speaks, yes?" Again, Elizabeth nodded in agreement, though unsure where the woman was going with her questions. "And," the other woman asked again. "If your receiver is damaged or lost, you will still hear the same thing, yes?"

Elizabeth thought a moment before answering with a soft, "No. No, I would not." To Elizabeth's surprise, the woman responded in Ancient, or at least something that sounded like Ancient. Elizabeth only understood the basic theme of the woman's speech, but could not translate the specific words—a frustrating experience for one as well versed in language as she.

Rodney spoke up then. "It sounds like some kind of recipe to me," he surmised. "I think it's an ancient form of Ancient."

The doctor shook her head. "No, it's a vow of some kind—a prayer, perhaps?" She had directed the question to Atlantis, but, to her surprise, John responded.

"I do not like green eggs and ham," he replied in a paced rhythm. "I will not eat them, Sam-I-Am."

The missing roots clicked in Elizabeth's mind and she knew, in that moment, John had flawlessly translated the ancient speech. Something tightened in her chest. Something was definitely wrong here. John knew a little Ancient, but he'd be the first to admit the limits of his vocabulary. Daniel Jackson he was not. She searched his eyes for some hint of the truth, but he broke his gaze away, returning it to the avatar.

"I spoke the same thing to you all," Atlantis interrupted the woman's thoughts. "Yet you all heard something different. In this case, it is little different. To you, Dr. Weir, I tried to commune words of hope, of comfort to soothe your ravaged heart. Your bereaved mind, however, interpreted that empathy differently than was intended, not unlike the way you changed my very words just now. You understood the intent, but not the meaning. Similarly, I tried to tell Dr. McKay that he was needed here in this lab, but his mind heard something different as well," she frowned and bowed her head apologetically. "I am sorry, much of my core components have been damaged. Perhaps if they were functioning properly, this would not have happened."

"It's all right," Elizabeth smiled. "But I'm still a little confused. What do you mean by resurrection protocol? Why would you need McKay down here if the body was back in the morgue?"

Atlantis tilted her head, not so much in confusion, but in correction. "Colonel Sheppard was very much alive by the time you both went to visit him, Dr. Weir," she stated, "Though in a deep stasis." When Elizabeth's surprised expression only deepened, Atlantis continued. "As soon as he was placed in the stasis chambers, the sensors within the chamber awakened, as Colonel Sheppard termed it, my 'resurrection protocol'. I knew I could restart his heart with this technology, but I needed Dr. McKay to fix some of my ailing components before I could attempt a full regeneration or I would risk greater harm than good. When he found his way down here, only then was I able to appear to him, as I appear now, to explain this situation directly. He has been working diligently ever since."

Elizabeth patted the Rodney on the back, thanking him for his valiant drive. Still, she could not help but look back at John, as if to reassure herself he was still there. John still did not meet her eyes. "It seems you done a fine job, Rodney."

"Not… exactly…" the scientist mumbled, his features falling into grim sorrow.

"What?" Elizabeth questioned.

"It didn't work," John hissed, the anger in his stance giving way to the anguish. His shoulders drooped and he at last met her eye with his weary hazel.

Elizabeth stopped just short of a whimper. "Excuse me?"

"The whole damn Ancient healing process," he continued, a defeated twinge to his voice. "It didn't work—at least, not as well as it was supposed to." John stared her dead in the eye, even as he stepped away, backward, away from the light. As he retreated and the light faded, he did not step in to shadow. Rather, his imaged faded, withered and grew dim. With a soft pulse of light, just as Atlantis' hologram had appeared, John dissolved into nothingness. Elizabeth startled when the dusty panel at the far end of the room slid back, revealing a small chamber beyond. Within the chamber rested a stasis pod lit with the light of life. Her stomach knotted again as she took stumbling steps into the smaller chamber. Approaching the Ancient pod, she ran a caring hand along its lines, afraid she knew what it contained even before she looked through the glass covering, but she pulled herself forward anyway. Within lay a very beaten, very burned John Sheppard, eyes closed in slumber.

Another pale pulse of light filled the chamber and Atlantis was at her side again. A sheepish Rodney shuffled in, though he kept his distance from the pod. Atlantis bowed her head respectfully, letting Elizabeth study the pod for a few moments before she spoke again. "Unfortunately, Dr. Weir, he speaks the truth," Atlantis stated. Elizabeth studied the face through the glass. There were the damnable scars, the fierce burns and the pale cast of slumber over rugged features. His healthy self been a mirage, a hologram, the entire time. That's why he felt so unreal, that's why she couldn't feel his presence.

Atlantis looked to the sleeping airman. "My medical components were able to revive him, to restart his heart, but I am afraid they are incapable of restoring him to a viable state in their present condition. His mind, as you have seen, remains connected to the outside world via a neural link, however, even in stasis his time remains limited," she looked to Elizabeth. "Eventually his heart will fail."

"Then get Beckett down here!" Elizabeth ordered, unleashing her sudden fury on Rodney. How could he leave John down here? How could he hide him away if John needed help?

"To do what, Elizabeth?" he defended. "The pod is the only thing keeping him alive at this point. It's turning his last minutes into his last hours, that's all we can hope for. Taking him out of there would be just the same as killing him!"

"Then get a team down here and fix the equipment! You can have whoever you need."

Rodney gritted his teeth in quiet frustration. "It's not that simple, Elizabeth. Integral systems have been utterly destroyed, and it's not like the Ancients left a garage full of spare parts lying around."

Elizabeth's mind clawed for solutions, for a way out. "What about the sister city we found on…"

"I already considered that," the scientist hissed, more in regret than anger. "If we had the Daedalus and a month to kill, we might be able to come up with something. You can't just drag and drop these parts into place," his shoulders slumped sadly. "Look, you know I want to help more than anyone, but…"

"But the Daedalus is over a week away, and John only has a couple of days," she returned, before her eyes dropped back to the stasis pod. She studied the colonel's scarred features. "Am I right?"

Atlantis nodded slowly, "A day, maybe two." Elizabeth nodded knowingly, and then dropped her head as she traced the glass.

Rodney cleared his throat, suddenly finding it uncomfortable in his present surroundings. He turned his eyes away from the doctor, finding a spot somewhere on the far wall that seemed particularly interesting. "He didn't want anyone else to know," Rodney informed in a horse whisper. "He didn't want anyone to feel guilty, knowing there was nothing else they could do."

Elizabeth's lips turned up in a trembling, bittersweet smile. "We buried him once, why bury him again?" she asked, not really expecting an answer. That sounded like John's logic—efficient and utterly insane.

His eyes dropped again. "…exactly."

She laid a hand on the glass. "If he weren't lying on his death bed, I'd kill him."

"That's why he didn't want you to know," the scientist added. Letting his eyes fall on the sad woman, a wave of brutal honesty washed through him. "You never should have come down here," he murmured.